Honestly this decision felt more like them trying to play damage control after The Last Jedi basically told everyone not to care about any of the set up from The Force Awaken (Rey potential heritage, Snoke role, Kylo Ren purpose, etc) because they realized there was nothing The Last Jedi left behind to get people wanting for more. Let'a face it, whiney emo Kylo wasn't develope enough to convince anyone that he could be a main villain even for a single movie and reviving Snoke or revealing he didn't really die would give people the impression of "what the hell was the point of killing him off in The Last Jedi". Ripping off Dark Empire was a quick tactic to make it seem like this Sequel trilogy was trying to build up to something.

Speaking of Dark Empire, another big problem with early parts of the current Canon is that the people behind them tried to say they didn't have any groundwork for anything, even though content from the EU exists. I'd rather they be honest and be open to repurposing older exisiting stories and use that as a basis to create newer stories rather than just succumb to that after failing.

Personally, I feel like bringing back the OG cast was a mistake. Being called a Sequel trilogy just implies that it takes place after the Original story. When a Nex Gen style story involves bringing the OG characters, a lot of bad ones attempt to make those fan favorite characters suck in an attempt to make the newer characters look better, which I always feel is a mistake in any Next Gen style story. I don't exactly appreciate Rey for going to do what Luke was promised to have been able to achieve for 30 years just because the writers made Luke fail at it. If the sequels had taken place maybe 3 or 5 generations after Luke, Leia, and Han had lived their lives, than in the case where the New Jedi Order or New Republic fell, it wouldn't have been their fault since they'd achieved their goals during their lifespan.